Postgame: Catching up with Yesterday's Stars: Rusty Sarnes

Sunday

Mar 1, 2009 at 12:01 AMMar 1, 2009 at 12:05 AM

Rusty Sarnes jokes about being outnumbered 3-1 by females in his own house, but the former Havana High School and Lincoln Land Community College two-sport standout doesn’t have a clipboard full of regrets to talk about. Sarnes did it his way and was very good at it.

Jim Ruppert

Rusty Sarnes jokes about being outnumbered 3-1 by females in his own house, but the former Havana High School and Lincoln Land Community College two-sport standout doesn’t have a clipboard full of regrets to talk about.

Sarnes did it his way and was very good at it.

He’s back living in his hometown and working at the Caterpillar plant in Mapleton.
“We build a part for the new wind farms they’re starting now,” Sarnes said. “I’ve been doing that job for the past four or five months.”

He has been employed by Caterpillar for 4½ years, and previously he was involving in building parts for the heads of engines.

The 6-foot-7 Sarnes was The State Journal-Register Class A Male Athlete of the Year following his senior year at Havana in 1994. He was a standout basketball player, and as a left-handed pitcher he was drafted in the 26th round by the San Diego Padres.

Sarnes elected to go to Lincoln Land Community College, where he continued to play both sports at a high level. At the end of his freshman season the Loggers finished third in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II World Series in Millington, Tenn. Sarnes was drafted in the 30th round by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1995 but elected to return to LLCC for his sophomore year.

After playing both sports his sophomore year at Lincoln Land, Sarnes still wasn’t ready to give up either. He got a scholarship to then-NCAA Division II Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

“I wanted to go play basketball,” Sarnes said. “I wasn’t done. I wanted to play. I wouldn’t do it any differently. I wanted try to play both. I wouldn’t change anything.”

He was one of SIU-E’s top basketball players as a junior, but during baseball season he hurt his shoulder. The Cougars went on to finish fifth in the NCAA Division II World Series.

Sarnes led the Cougars in scoring with a 14.1 average and was the No. 3 rebounder at 5.6 per game as a senior. He earned honorable mention honors in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. Due to the arm trouble, he pitched sparingly with the baseball team and was 3-1 with a 6.27 earned run average in just under 40 innings.

“If I could go back, I’d get surgery on my arm and go from there,” the 32-year-old Sarnes said. “There’s a little bit of regret (about that), but I don’t think I’d change anything.”

After graduation Sarnes worked for M&M Vending, a Macomb-based business, for a while. He also coached the freshman baseball team at Macomb High School as well as the grade-school girls basketball and freshman-sophomore baseball at Havana.

“A lot of kids you have to really baby,” he said about his coaching experience. “You can’t get on them for a lot of things. Our coaches would scream and yell. You had to take it.”

Sarnes and his wife, Amber, have two daughters. Taylor will soon turn 7 and Jaylynn recently turned 3. Rusty Sarnes helps coach Taylor’s basketball team and plans to help with the softball time in the spring.

He says he still plays basketball and a little slow-pitch softball. He recently took part in the Glory Days Classic alumni basketball tournament at Petersburg PORTA.

“I play once in a while,” Sarnes said. “We had 22 guys for one team. A lot of them were older guys.

“It was a fun idea. Next year we’ll do a lot better. We’ll get younger guys. I was the fourth-youngest guy we had.”

When asked if he was in shape, Sarnes said, “Not really.”

Playing sports are just for fun nowadays. As the girls get older, he knows there will be more and more running around. And as for the thought of adding a son to the Sarnes brood . . .

“I have a wife and two beautiful kids,” he said. “I don’t know if I could handle three girls. I’m outnumbered as it is.”

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